Spent a few days in this area which is close to the popular Gorge Road so I
thought I would pass on what I saw for people heading out over the holidays.
The Dec.24th layer was buried over 60cms, by two
successive low density snow falls of 20 and 45cms. before a layer of freezing
rain coated the surface of the snow on the afternoon of Dec.27th. This
crust varied from 2mm. to close to shin bruising 10mm. thick and was quickly
buried by another 20cms. of snow overnight.
Continued snow improved the skiing and by the time I left on
the evening of Dec.30th we had accumulated 50-60cms of snow over the
27th crust and close to a 100cms.
over the Dec. 24th facets. During my time there all
the snow above and below the crust remained fairly unsettled and seemed to lack
the stiffness (slab properties) to produce any avalanches and we saw very
minimal natural activity. Regardless we approached the terrain by limiting our
exposure to larger open steep features.
We were waiting for things to stiffen up and it now sounds
as though that is definitely the case and I suspect things would be
significantly more touchy
than the previous few days.
Scott Davis
ACMG/IFMGA Mountain Guide